Around The World (Wide Web): Lakers Fall To The Warriors

From Mike Bresnahan, LA Times: Uh-oh. Another sham-mockery. Coach Mike D’Antoni didn’t go ballistic after this game, but the Lakers certainly imploded during a 109-103 loss Monday night at Oracle Arena. As teams try to build momentum and magnetism heading into the playoffs, the Lakers showed neither while losing a third consecutive game. Not that they seemed especially worried about that. “I’m terrified,” Kobe Bryant said, sarcastically, of the suddenly sagging Lakers. “Do I look terrified? Not at all.” The scoreboard was much friendlier than the actual discrepancy between the teams, the Lakers fully unable to stop the Warriors and again experiencing too many crises on offense with the exception of a late-game rally. “Our offense was anemic,” D’Antoni said.

From Kevin Ding, OC Register: The Lakers’ hope was that Pau Gasol’s return from injury would help them develop a consistently solid second unit. The Lakers figured to have enough depth that fill-in starter Earl Clark wouldn’t even have regular minutes once Gasol got back to his usual level of conditioning. But the Lakers’ depth was woefully lacking Monday night at Golden State with Antawn Jamison struggling to adjust to a sprained right wrist suffered last game and then starting small forward Metta World Peace not playing the second half because of a strained left knee. Welcome back, Earl.

From Drew Garrison, Silver Screen & Roll: The Los Angeles Lakers were beaten by the Golden State Warriors Monday night, final score 109-103. Yes, it wound up as a six point deficit, but in no shape was this game ever truly “close”. The Warriors were in full control of the game as they shot heat seeking missiles at the rim through the first three quarters, only finally running out of ammo in the fourth quarter. Still, it was enough to put the Lakers away. The Lakers came out flat. Kobe Bryant was asserting his will early and missing nearly every field goal. Worse, it wasn’t just Kobe missing throughout the night, but the entire team couldn’t score. All those missed field goals? Opportunities for the Warriors to push the ball up the court and take advantage of the Lakers’ atrocious transition defense.

From Dave McMenamin, ESPN Los Angeles: Count Kobe Bryant as one Los Angeles Lakers player who was uninspired by coach Mike D’Antoni’s postgame rant last week. “I don’t think it’s time to get emotional,” Bryant said Monday after the Lakers lost 109-103 to the Golden State Warriors, extending their losing streak to three games. “We got to just maintain our poise and just think about, [from an execution standpoint], what are we going to do. We got to look at what teams are doing against us in terms of spreading us out and rolling a big and now we collapse and now we’re late to the shooters.” “This is about the third game in a row where that’s happened to us,” he said, “so we got to figure out defensively what we’re going to do. Not really get overly emotional, but we just got to look at what’s going on and make adjustments.”

From Ramneet Singh, Lakers Nation: The Los Angeles Lakers lost their third consecutive game last night in Oakland, while losing ground on the Utah Jazz for the eight seed in the Western Conference. The Lakers never really had a chance in the game against the Warriors as the young team dominated Los Angeles from the opening tip. Golden State enjoyed a double digit lead throughout the game and even though the Lakers made a run late, the outcome was never in doubt. The Warriors outplayed the Lakers in almost every aspect and they were much more physical than the veteran Lakers squad.

Ryan Cole

3 responses to Around The World (Wide Web): Lakers Fall To The Warriors

Kobe tweeted that the return of Pau upset their balance. Preaching patience. OK. But that is no excuse for not putting forth effort on defense. How can this team be complacent when they are @ real risk of missing the playoffs? To wit, Dallas & Utah are charging. This team is frustrating and puzzling beyond measure. Sorry for the rant.

The championship grit is gone, we have Kobe and that’s about it. Laker management has traded championship moxy, we fired Mike Brown for MDA…Pau is a shell of his former self mentally and physically. Pau was has been bad since the playoffs a couple years back. Remember when Phil hit him in this chest, yes Pau is done. All we can do is get into the post season and hope for that best. I can’t see MDA here next year unless we win a championship, it’s clear he has no idea how to lead as a coach , make game time adjustments, construct a winning game plan, and his philosophy and mentality has infested the team. Hence, why Meeks has the guts to dare take more shots than Howard (not the 1st time). We don’t play smart basketball winning basketball and that starts with their coach.

11 games to go and the chances of the Lakers making the post-season remain a very firm “maybe”. And as an 8th seed at best, (Utah & the Mavs are both closer to the Lakers than the Lakers are to the Rockets or Warriors) they will face the Spurs or Thunder…w/o homecourt advantage.

And without a 1st round pick, why does anyone feel next year will be better? Two biggest free agents next season both play in L. A. now (CP3 & D-12). Salary cap issues will become tougher and Kobe will be a year older & on the books for $30,000,000.00. Ouch!

Best thing about next season is we won’t be fooled again with high expectations. We’ll just be prepared for a rerun of this season and look forward to truly rebuilding in the 2014-15 season.